A couple of years ago, my former pastor and friend, Terry Webster, asked if I would contribute to his sermon, from a mother's perspective. He was gracious enough to share it in it's entirety. I am sharing it with you because I believe hope, faith and love hold true-then, now, and forever. Happy Easter! He is risen indeed.
Easter
Sunday Sermon
April
1, 2018
‘The
Unfinished Gospel’
The long process of cleaning out all of my stuff has slowly
begun. After all of these years, I have
a lot of things tucked away that need to be dealt with. One of the things I
have discovered is that after all these years, I only have 4 sermons that I have
saved. I know that is a bit of a disappointment for everyone who were really
looking forward to me putting them into a book that you could buy in a few
months. Sorry about that. One of these sermons was the very first one I ever
preached, which surprisingly is really bad. A second one was part of a series
that was used when a previous church built a new facility. The third was the
Sunday after September 11, 2001 and the 4th? Well, you get to hear it today. It is one
that is really special because part of it was written by one of our folks here
at FPC. So here goes. If you remember
it, I am really impressed. If not, then it is new to you. So here goes.
‘The first thing the world noticed about the early Christian
was that they ate together’. So begins
Rachel Held Evans words on communion in her book ‘Searching for Sunday.’ It is
an amazing book about her journey on loving, leaving, and finding Church. These words aren’t too surprising because for
the early Christians because the life of Jesus-his death and resurrection,
changed everything in their lives, so men and women, slave and free, rich and
poor, Jew and Gentile gathered to eat.
The story of the resurrection is amazing, so amazing that
apparently Mark couldn’t find the words to describe it. This morning we hear
Marks gospel story, the original 8 verses he wrote to tell about what happened
on that Sunday morning. As we heard Mary Claire read these words, the main
thing you may have noticed is that
Mark’s story just sort of ends. Really,
it’s not a great ending. I can understand the urge to fix it-the rest of the
verses in chapter 16 were added later by well meaning people hoping to sync it
up a bit more with the other gospels, maybe to give it more of a victorious
feel. And I can understand why these extra words were added. Because while Mark
starts out in the usual fashion, its early Sunday morning, it’s still dark, the
women are going to the tomb to tend to Jesus’ body, the stone is rolled away,
they hear the word that Jesus has been raised, they are sent back to tell-Mark
seems to botch the ending completely with his last words…’so they went out and
fled the tomb, for terror and amazement has seized them, and they said nothing
to anyone, for they were afraid.’ Do you
see what I mean? It’s the only resurrection story in the Bible where Jesus
never actually makes an appearance. And then these women disciples fail at what
the young man tells them to do. This is
all pretty surprising. They have been told not to be afraid—words that the
Biblical code words for ‘good news is coming’—but it doesn’t happen for them.
All they do is run off and hide, afraid, fleeing the tomb and saying absolutely
nothing to anyone. And there you have
it, a resurrection story scene without Jesus that seems to end in failure.
So what is going on with Mark? To be honest, I thought for
the longest time that he just wasn’t very good with endings. But the more I
read this, the more I realize the genius and beauty of what Mark is up to. Instead of leaving the gospel story where it
is, Mark does something really remarkable—he lets us wonder. He lets us think.
He lets us finish the story. Mark writes this very open ended gospel that seems
to end in failure precisely to place the burden of responsibility for telling
the good news squarely on our shoulders. Mark isn’t terrible at endings, it
turns out-Mark is rather brilliant, and by telling the gospel this way, Mark
invites us-the disciples, the early church, you and me-into the story, to pick
up where the story left off and to tell the good news of Jesus.
So that got me thinking. What can we do, what can you and I
do to continue what Mark started? What did these women do? What did the disciples do? And for some
reason, my mind stated wondering to a couple of things…Mary, the mother of Jesus,
and a family wedding. So, I sought out
an expert-one of our moms- Mary Claire Brass. You may not know that along with
being a great mom, Mary Claire is also an amazing blogger.
Now, no one could ever fully grasp what Mary went
through—seeing her son go through all of the horror she witnessed. What did she
do? So I asked Mary Claire to put
herself—as a mom—and see all of this through her eyes, through the eyes of
Jesus’ mother. And her words are “A
Mothers Hope”
A Mother's hope
She lay in
deafening silence. Her heart was empty, broken. Her mind raced-the thoughts
came without warning. He was bad, wrong, evil. He didn't deserve to be here in
the first place, he's wasn't good enough. These were the words of others, but
they were infiltrating her brain as if they were her own. She shook her head to
rid herself of the doubt. It had been months, but the uncertainty still crept
in.
What she knew,
what she reached for was what he meant to her. But not just her-what he meant
to countless others-those he touched, those he came close to, those he loved
without condition, those he healed, those who believed. Her will started to
come back and she lifted herself to her knees.
It was still too much. The sobs came like a flood and she let them come
so she could release the doubt, the fear. She embraced the condemnation of
others so she could then send it away, it wasn't hers to keep. She decided
right then she would love like he loved, forgive like he forgave, stand like he
stood-with the weak, the poor, the broken, the sick. All as one, all as equal.
How could she start? How could she heal?
She reached deep within her soul or what she felt was left of it and decided
bringing people together would be the only way. For the people who loved,
doubted, even hated Him to come to eat and drink surrounded by his spirit,
brought together by love. Love would be
the only way for so many to sit down as one.
She hadn't sunk so deep that she had forgotten that love was the only
thing that outlives us all, the only thing that really mattered. And so she decided, people would come
together for communion to remember and celebrate his sacrifice. His life for
each of theirs-his life, his death, and ultimately his resurrection. And in this decision she was able to stand
and raise her arms wide open to allow herself to be filled back up again.
Filled with all of the things that her son was to her-belief, honor, love,
forgiveness. She would replace grief with determination. Determined he'd
be remembered through her eyes, through her actions, through his meal. Who she
knew him to be. Her heart became full. For once again when she was totally
lost, she was able to pick herself back up and open her heart. And she became
filled with something she thought she had lost when she lost him. She was
filled with hope.
‘For the people who loved, doubted,
even hated Jesus to come together and eat and drink surrounded by His spirit
brought together by love’
Pretty amazing, isn’t it. To bring
people together around a table because God knows what can happen, what will
happen, when we break bread together.
And this brings me to a wedding. A few years ago, Marsha and I headed
off to Austin Texas for the wedding of my nephew Stephen to Elisabeth. Most of
us hadn’t met her, but were really looking forward to this opportunity, not
only to meet her, but also to join together in this celebration of the covenant
of marriage. And it was great to meet Elisabeth, and how do I describe her.
Well, there is lot about her that some might not appreciate. She is a lovely young woman, wild red hair,
body art, multiple piercings, wildly liberal, divorced, wants nothing to do
with God, and worse of all, a huge fan of the University of Texas. But she loves my nephew, and love overlooks a
lot, doesn’t it. Well, after the wedding
in the park that they wanted, we all gathered for a reception at a combined
yoga studio/art museum, one of their favorite places.
And as we gathered around this table,
there was this family, my family. There is one sister in law, a widow, the
grooms mother, who is a self ordained Pentecostal minister who uses her
religion to hurt others. My brother, who
isn’t sure what he believes about God anymore as he has watched his wife
struggle in her 10th year of dealing with cancer that has nearly
bankrupted them. Sadly and strangely, it is the same cancer that hit the
Webster house up here in Kentucky. Over
in the corner is a nephew, who is still struggling with the effects of some
poor decisions he made a few years back-decisions that have changed his life
forever. There was my sister and her
husband and their 3 kids, who still miss and grieve the death of their oldest
daughter Sara many years ago when she was 15. And there was my oldest sister,
who pretty much embodies everything good and holy, but who wasn’t able to marry
her partner because of the state she lives in.
The Webster clan is an opinionated,
loud, stubborn, arguing group of people. But here we were, with all of our
flaws, and our needs, and our struggles, adding one more chair around the
dinner table, welcoming one more person to the family.
And as I was sitting there, breaking
bread with my family, I started to see the real power of the words that Mary
Claire wrote, and what the resurrection and the table are all about. It is in the midst of the brokenness, our
disunity, our wounds, and our joys and love, that God brought Jesus back. Like
those women, we don’t really understand what happened on that Sunday morning,
we might never fully understand, we might even run away, but we gather to
remember, to celebrate, to break bread, to pull up some more chairs and allow
more people to be welcomes to God’s table.
Easter is a celebration for the
broken, for the questioning, for the doubting, for the scared, for those who
want to run away and for those who are certain, who have no questions, who have
it all together. And that is the way
that you and I can finish the story that Mark started. We open our arms, we
pull up another chair, we welcome those we love, and those we don’t, and we
share in this amazing gift of resurrection and of the table.
As Rachel Evans writes, ‘the gospel
doesn’t need a coalition devoted to keeping the wrong people out. It needs a
family of sinners, saved by grace, committed to tearing down walls, throwing
open doors, and shouting ‘Welcome! There is bread! There is wine! Come eat with
us and talk!’ This isn’t a kingdom for the worthy, it is a kingdom for the
hungry. As we live in this Easter moment, we are the church speaking the word
of God saying ‘I’m throwing a banquet, all those mismatched, messed up people
are invited. Come and eat!’ Hmm. It is
just like a family pulling an extra seat at the wedding banquet.
Friends, Easter is a celebration of
the feast of God. It is God welcoming us to the table. When Jesus wanted to
explain what his death and resurrection was all about, he didn’t give a theory.
He didn’t give his followers a set of scriptural texts. He just gave them a
meal around a table. Today we join together to discover Jesus as we sit around
the table and break bread, here at this table, and also as you sit at table
with your family or with friends every day.
